Sydney

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Blog 12



Part I:

Cairns – Sydney - March 22, 2018 – Weather forecast: Cairns - partly cloudy - daytime temperature of 31°C; overnight temperature of 23°C - 60% of rain; Sydney cloudy and windy – daytime temperature of 22°C; overnight temperature of 19°C – 60% chance of showers overnight



Today is the last of our travel days to a new destination for the land tour and fortunately it is not as rushed as some of our earlier departures. We actually got to sleep in as our luggage does not have to be out for the porters until 9:00am and we leave the hotel for the airport at 10:00am. The schedule calls for us to leave Cairns on a two o’clock flight, land in Sydney late afternoon and go directly to dinner before actually checking into the hotel. Challenging!



The flight had a few bumpy minutes just as we left Cairns as we passed through the edge of an incoming storm front. Otherwise the journey was smooth and uneventful. Once on the ground in Sydney we moved our bags out to the bus loading area and boarded the coach. The driver took us on a mini city tour on our way to Nick’s seafood restaurant in the Darling Harbour district of the city. What should have taken twenty minutes turned into an hour due to it being rush hour, combined with the fact that many of the streets in the downtown area are torn up for the installation of a Light Rail Transit system. In addition, the city is extending its subway system so there are any number of places along the route on the surface that are closed and create obstacles for street traffic.



At Nick’s we enjoyed an excellent dinner on their patio area and fortunately we were under a canopy as it started to rain.



Part II:

Sydney – March 23, 2018 – Weather forecast: cloudy – daytime temperature 22°C; overnight temperature of 18°C – 20% chance of showers



Today we boarded our coach at 8:00am for a continuation of our city tour which we started yesterday evening. After an hour and a half, and a stop at Mrs. Macquaries Chair, we ended the tour with a stop at the Sydney Opera House where we enjoyed an in-depth tour of the building. Following that we were taken to the National Opal collection where we enjoyed a light snack of sandwiches and cold drinks while the staff provided us with a brief introduction to how opals were created and how the stones are transformed into jewelry. Following our visit, we walked back to our hotel to enjoy the rest of the day on our own. We met up with our friends who had flown in from Canada and did some exploration of the city’s architecture. Tomorrow we have full day tour out to the Blue Mountain region with a stop at the Featherdale Wildlife Park.

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Photos

1
Mrs. Macquaries Chair

2
First view of House

3
Beautiful bench

4
Studio theatre

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Lots of stairs at Opera House

6
Opera stage

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Opera House roof tiles

8
Interior stairwell

9
General Post Office building